A Bible History of Baptism

by Samuel J. Baird

The apostle illustrates his subject with another figure, which has been sometimes pressed into the service of immersion. “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” It has been assumed that the planting of a tree is here associated with immersion in water (“buried by baptism”), as representing the burial of the dead. Thus, “the likeness of his death,” which was by crucifixion, is confounded with the form of burial of the dead. This is recognized by Dr. Carson, whose exposition of the figure is essentially correct. Of sumphutoi (“planted together”) he says,—“It might, I think, be applied to express the growing together of the graft and the tree; but this would be the effect or consequence of grafting, and not the operation itself. It denotes, in short, the closest union, with respect to things indiscriminately. There is no need, then, to bring either planting or grafting into the passage; and as neither of them resembles a resurrection, they should be rejected. When we translate the passage,—‘For, if we have become one with him,’ or, ‘have been joined with him, in the likeness of his death,’—we not only suit the connexion, to both death and resurrection, but we take the word sumphutoi, in its most common acceptation.”[^[107]] This witness is true. The phrase has no reference to the form of ritual baptism, but to the intimacy of the union which that of the Spirit establishes. The two expressions,—“Baptized into his death,” and “Coplanted with him in the likeness of his death,” are coincident, meaning essentially the same thing. It is, however, a fundamental defect in Carson’s conception, that while he earnestly insists on the closeness of the union, by which Christ and his people are one, he fails to recognize the essential fact that it is effected by the baptism of the Spirit. In his conception and vocabulary, it is a “constituted union.” A ray of light entering his mind on this point would have transfigured his whole system.

But what means our being joined with Christ in the likeness of his death? Here and elsewhere, Paul explains abundantly. “He died by sin,” our sin, as being the meritorious cause of his death. “He was crucified through weakness,”—the weakness of his humiliation, under the law and the curse. (2 Cor. xiii, 4.) He died by the cross, the agonies of which he voluntarily assumed. And he lives again, by the power of God who raised him from the dead. So we also, if truly baptized into him, “are weak (en autō) in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward us.”—2 Cor. xiii, 4. We are weak in him, in a realizing sense imparted by his Spirit in us, of the desert and condemnation of sin, and of its prevailing power, which renders our emancipation from it a crucifixion of the flesh, the agonies of which we voluntarily incur. And we live with him, in the present life of the new man after his image, created by the baptism of his Spirit in us, as we shall finally live with him in the life of glory. Thus we are joined with him in the likeness of his death, and also of his resurrection.

From this analysis, it is evident that the assumption of allusion to a supposed ritual burial is wholly unnecessary to the exegesis of the passage. In fact, the supposition of such allusion is altogether incongruous and confusing to the argument of the place. (1.) The real baptism and its effects are the alone subjects of the discussion; and any exegesis which ignores this must lead to error. (2.) The burial of which the apostle speaks is spiritual, as well as is the baptism. The two are in no sense identical; but the one is, by the apostle distinctly and sharply discriminated from the other. The baptism is the primary cause, of which the burial is one, and but one, of the results. The baptism is the shedding upon us of the Holy Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. The burial is the putting away, and obliterating of the old man out of our lives. It follows, that in any parallel figurative or ritual system, each one of these spiritual realities must have its own analogue, as distinctly defined and discriminated, each from the other, as are the realities which they are designed to represent. And, in fact, such is the figurative system of the Scriptures, which represent the one by the figure of the outpouring of water, and the other by the burial of the dead. To interpret, therefore, a ritual baptism as symbolic of the spiritual burial, is as incongruous to the Scriptural conception, as would be the employment of the burial of the dead to represent the outpouring upon us of the Spirit of life. And to understand the apostle, by the expression, “buried by the baptism” to mean directly the spiritual phenomenon which the phrase designates, and at the same time to convey an allusion to a ritual baptism as being a symbol of the burial, is an absurdity which does violence to the whole conception, to the destruction of its propriety and significance. For, not only are the two thus sharply discriminated by Paul, but he attributes to each its own relations and predicates, and assigns to each its own place in the scheme of grace and in the argument which he states. To neglect, therefore, the distinction, and confound them together, as is done by the Baptist interpretation, destroys the whole logical force and sequence of the argument, and dissolves the connection between the premises and the conclusions.

Moreover, were it even allowable, as it is not, thus to confound things that differ, there still remains a point of difficulty in the way of the immersion exegesis which, for its removal, demands something more than the mere assumption which has heretofore been put in the place of proof. The apostle speaks, not of immersion, but of burial. “Buried with him.” That the two ideas are not identical does not need to be proved. Nor is the difference so slight that the one would readily suggest itself as a figure of the other. But in order to sustain the Baptist conclusions which depend on this language, it would be necessary to demonstrate that the rites of sepulture with which the writers of the Scriptures were familiar, and in conformity to which the body of Jesus was entombed, bore a resemblance to immersion in water, so close and manifest, that the one was a recognized symbol of the other. But there is certainly no such resemblance as to justify the gratuitous assumption that such a figure was employed; and of its actual use, the Scriptures contain not a trace.

Is it still insisted that, nevertheless, there is an allusion to the rite of immersion? Such an allusion must be supposed to shed light or beauty upon the presentation of the spiritual theme of the passage; or, it is an arbitrary impertinence. Let us then view the suggestion squarely, in the light of the realized observance, thus forced into critical notice. The theme of the apostle is the calm majesty and power of the Savior’s three days’ rest in the sepulcher, and of the silent and unseen mystery of his rising on the third day; and the tranquil energy of the same mighty power in the believer (Eph. i, 19, 20; ii, 1), by which he is quickened and raised up to the life of holiness. The figure which is intruded, to illuminate and adorn this conception, calls up before us the apprehension and haste of the ritual observance, and the agitation, the gasping and sputter of the dripping subjects of the rite, as they struggle up out of the “watery grave.” Is it possible to conceive that master of rhetoric, the apostle Paul, to have called up these, the essential and inseparable features of the rite of immersion, as a means of shedding light or beauty on his exalted theme?

Section LXXIX.—“Buried with Him in Baptism.”

Col. ii, 9-13.—“In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power. In whom, also, ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ (suntaphentes autō en to baptismati), having been buried with him by the baptism, wherein also ye were raised up with him, through the faith of the operation of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, did he quicken together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.” Here, in the phrase,—“the body of the sins of the flesh,” which is the reading of the common version, the critical editors unite in rejecting (hamartiōn) “of the sins,” which was undoubtedly a gloss inserted from the margin, in careless transcription.

It is evident that the doctrine and argument of the passage just examined from the epistle to the Romans, and this to the Colossians are essentially the same. In the former, Paul shows that the child of God can not live in sin;—in the latter that he ought to walk in Christ. The controlling motive of the apostle’s argument, here, is, to free his readers from the bondage of ritual ordinances and human devices of religion. He begins with the admonition,—“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”—vs. 8. To this, he again recurs as the conclusion of his argument.—“Therefore, if ye be dead with Christ, from the rudiments of the world, why as though living in the world are ye subject to ordinances, ... after the commandments and doctrines of men?”—vs. 20, 21. It is with a view to these things that the exhortation is written,—“As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so, walk ye in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith,” as contrasted with these traditions of men. Thus, as in the parallel plea to the Romans, so here, the determining idea is union with the Lord Jesus,—that spiritual union of which the baptism of the Spirit is the efficient and only cause. The dignity and glory conferred by it are emphasized by the declaration that “in Him dwelleth all, (plērōma) the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” In the person of Jesus, the Son is incarnate; the Father’s glory and power invest him, and the Spirit is his and dwells in him. “And ye are (peplērōmenoi) made full in him.” “Made full in him” by virtue of that mutual relation which Jesus describes;—“You in me, and I in you.”—John xiv, 20. Thus, made full, with all the graces of his indwelling Spirit, and so needing no recourse to the rudiments of the world. With this fullness of grace, the apostle then contrasts the coincident emptying of the old man. “In whom ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ.” Circumcision signified the cutting off and destruction of the corrupt nature derived by generation, the old man, through the blood and sufferings of the promised Seed of Abraham. This operation is here called “the circumcision of Christ,” as it is that spiritual reality of which ritual circumcision was the type. The apostle holds it up to view, as the substance, in contrast with the emptiness of the ritual shadow, against dependence on which he dissuades his Colossian readers. This circumcision of Christ he proceeds to explain farther. “Putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, (suntaphentes autō) having been buried with him in the baptism.” In the conception and argument of the apostle, emphasis rests on the definite article, which here, and in the parallel place, already examined, is ignored in the common English version, and in the Revised version. Paul’s aim in this place is to hold up the spiritual realities of the gospel in contrast with the emptiness of ritual forms. He coordinates “the baptism” with “the circumcision of Christ,” in producing the spiritual phenomena of which he is speaking. Or, rather, he postulates the baptism as the ultimate cause of the circumcision and its results. That, by the phrase, “the baptism,” he designates the same thing as in Romans vi, 4, is evident, as it is also that as in that place, so here, the baptism is not the burial, but is related to it, as the cause to the effect.—“Buried with him by the baptism.” How the baptism effects the burial, has been shown in that place. The distinction between the two, which is there so strongly marked, is in this passage equally clear and important; and the consequences there traced are here as legitimate and pertinent. The supposition of an allusion to immersion in water, in either place, is utterly groundless, and in both alike incongruous and destructive to the apostle’s conception and argument. Certainly, this place no more than the other necessitates recourse to the supposed rite of immersion, in order to a rational interpretation. And it is equally certain that at the touch of a discriminating exegesis the supposed allusion to such a rite vanishes utterly away.

Section LXXX.—End of the Baptist Argument.

The Baptist position rests on two assumptions. The first is, that baptizo means, to dip, to immerse, to submerge,—one or other of these, as the different advocates of the cause may select,—and nothing else. The second is, that on account of its resemblance to the laying of the body of Jesus in the sepulchre, the rite of dipping, immersion, or submersion in water was appointed as a symbol of his entombing. The first of these assumptions is essential to vindicate the mode in question, and the second to establish its typical significance. If baptizo does not mean as defined, or if that is not the only meaning, the whole immersion fabric falls to the ground. And if the second proposition is not established, the rite becomes an unmeaning absurdity.—On these vital points, the following are the results of the evidence thus far developed in these pages.